Tobacco fieldsA tough day on the bike, with a lot of pot-holed dirt roads. one upside of this was that we travelled along the side of the Mekong and saw many farmers tending to their tobacco farms. It was quite beautiful with the river and palm tree backdrop.

Cows and ChickensA great moment today when a herd of bullock came walking up the road past us (see attached movie). Good thing they did it when we were stopped for break, otherwise there would be riders and bull all over the road.

A chicken crossed the road in front of me today. Nobody could tell me why..hahaha.. it stopped, started, stopped again before dashing across the final bit of the road. safe. A less fortunate chicken did not have the same experience as it darted between three riders...managing to end up with its head in the spokes of one of the bikes at which point it let out a sound more like a startled turkey than a chicken... it was lucky by the fact that its head somehow came out of the spokes quickly and that chicken darted back where it had come..

It certainly makes you wonder why they were crossing the road in the first place. :-)

While I think of it, Thai's seem to love to have big, bright animal statues out the front of their homes. I had forgotten this from the last ride. They are usually placed around an area for offerings from memory, so I am guessing there is something religious to it.

Coffee ShopOn the third leg today, I pushed it reasonably hard again. This time the lead group was only travelling around 30-32km/hr so I managed to stay connected with them.

We stopped at a house that had setup a coffee shop out the front. The iced mocha was amazing as the hot midday sun began to beat down. I had to use the bathroom and so thankfully the owners offered their household bathroom. It was tiled and even had a water fountain in it

! This was in stark contrast to the village bathroom you saw in my previous blog. Goes to show there is money in coffee no matter where you are in the world!

Driveby

in Thailand stuff just happens. We arrived in a small village with one main road through it. as the road turned a bend, it became apparent that a local street gathering had been setup, blocking the entire road - equipped with a marquee and plastic tables and chairs covering the road! we stopped..there was no where to go. then a couple of Thai's quickly started to re-arrange things so we could walk our bikes through (see the video). a very funny moment.

102kms overwith the day over and the rest day following, we set off for another boat trip on the river, again with a superb sunset. I may have to load up those photo's tomorrow as connectivity has been a real issue here.

The team celebrated at a local venue called the Ohio Bar and then on to the Puck Bar. The details of which are sketchy...